US CO2 Emissions at 20-year low

This article is nuanced by various people in whatever way floats their boat.

AP states " In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal."

further... "Bentek says that power companies plan to retire 175 coal-fired plants over the next five years. That could bring coal's CO2 emissions down to 1980 levels"

Replies to This Discussion

I take this claim as somewhat misleading, because it's based mostly on counting fracked natural gas replacing coal. While burning natural gas releases less CO2 than coal, CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas. Fracking releases far more methane than coal mining, and in in the first decade methane raises Earth's temperature about 67 times more than CO2 does.